Infra Red
by Queenish
Summary: I can make them hurt if I want to. Tom Riddle brings his friends on an adventure.


_Disclaimer: All material save the writting itself belongs to J.K. Rowling, Warner Bros. and a bunch of other people who aren't me._

_**Infra Red**_

**by Queenish**

_"I can make them hurt if I want to."_

_- HBP, p. 271_

_And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop and didn't really mean it. But that isn't true. At the time when it happens you do mean it. You think there's no other way of saving yourself and you're quite ready to save yourself that way. You want it to happen to the other person. You don't give a damn what they suffer. All you care about is yourself._

_- George Orwell, 1984_

Amy took her time, climbing over the jagged barrier of rocks that separated the dusty path from the ocean, which was roiling fiercely. The murky, cobalt-blue water splashed onto the craggy shore and left a swath of white sea-foam in its wake.

Amy shivered as she peered into the gloomy depths below her. Dennis and Tom were far ahead of her and she considered simply turning around and running back.

"Dennis!" she yelled at his jolting back as the boy stumbled over the rocks, "I think I want to back now! Mrs. Cole will be angry if…"

"Don't be a coward!" Tom roared at her, coming around with Dennis close behind. Then he grinned oddly. "It's only a little walk, now, Dennis isn't scared, are you Dennis?"

But on the contrary, Dennis looked rather terrified as he glanced back at the rock-strewn path. Amy too felt a quiver of fear at the way Tom's dark eyes glinted at them,

Tom turned away and started walking away again. Dennis looked at Amy and shrugged.

"C'mon, he's right. Just a little walk." he then staggered off in Tom's direction.

Amy wasn't convinced, but she didn't want to walk back by herself. If she went with Dennis and Tom and then came back, Mrs. Cole would be more angry at Tom than her, rather than if she went back alone.

Uneasy, Amy tried to keep up with the two boys. Dennis still looked anxious, but had no desire to loose face. Tom was marching ahead unafraid, his eyes alight with a sort of manic fascination as he scanned the edge of the bleak pier. Amy shuddered in the stiff, ocean breezes and wished longingly for her sweater. They had walked until the ground began to rise and the sea was far below them.

"When are going back? What are you looking for anyway?" Amy asked Tom, her teeth chattering slightly.

"Don't ask questions, it's annoying." Tom spat, not even looking at her.

"I'm cold." Amy muttered, rubbing her bare arms, which had broken into gooseflesh.

"What did I tell you about being…" Tom broke off with an excited gasp. He was looking down the serrated rock face, where a schism in the stone revealed a dark opening.

Dennis leaned over the edge, looking slightly green.

"How d'you 'spose we get down there?" he asked Tom warily.

Tom's brow was furrowed as he examined the shear drop. About thirty meters under them was a dark outcropping which served as a platform for the cave to rest on.

If he could just find a way to get down…

"Ok, I'm gonna get down there and you people can follow if you like..."

"I'm not going down there!" Amy shrieked staying as far away as she could from the edge of the cliff.

"Oh, c'mon, Amy, it's not so bad…" Dennis started.

"How exactly d'you 'spect to get down there anyway? Fly?" Amy exclaimed in Tom's direction. Tom was still looking over the edge as Amy yelled at him. He turned around slowly the face them. He was grinning oddly again.

"Don't worry about that. I can _do things_, remember?"

Amy and Dennis certainly remembered. They remembered Billy Stubbs's rabbit and its warped form swinging from a rafter in the dorms. They looked each other, their sense of discomfort growing. Dennis wished quietly that he had never agreed to come with Tom, who was so clearly off his rocker. Amy silently cursed Dennis for convincing her to go with the maniac.

"Oh, don't be such cowards." Tom asserted, striding towards them. "It'll just be a fun adventure, that's all…" Tom stopped in front of the two children and suddenly grabbed onto them by their shoulders. Amy squealed at the sudden, sharp grip and then screamed as she felt her insides crumple painfully. Dennis felt it too, like his whole body was being squeezed through a space too small for it.

It was all over in a second and they came back to reality. Amy looked around and abruptly burst into tears. They were standing on the stone outcropping, with the hollow, dark chasm of the cave right in front of them. Dennis looked at Tom, who was standing off to the side, looking very pleased with himself.

"H-how… how… w-what didja do?" he stuttered, his body not recovered from the assault of the trip, his mind not accepting the physical impossibility of what had happened.

"_I _can make things happen. I told you." Tom was grinning manically and at the two children, gleefully observing Amy's bawling and Dennis's fear. "Now let's go. I didn't just do that for no reason." He started walking to the mouth of the cave, but Amy and Dennis didn't follow. Amy had stopped crying but she was shivering and both children were frozen to the spot.

Tom sighed in exasperation and went to grab the children's arms. The both jumped away and Amy shrieked.

"D-don't touch me! Y-you freak!" Amy yelled loudly, her voice breaking in the wake of her tears.

"I'm not a freak." Tom muttered, low and dangerous, angry at them now. "And you're coming with me!" he yelled and the children jumped. "Let's go!"

He stalked off and the children followed, fearful of this young boy who could control things with a power that was both alarming and unreal. They came to the lip of the cave and entered it. Amy was now gripping Dennis's arm and whimpering as they followed Tom.

Tom grinned as they were submerged in the dim obscurity of the cave. Its smooth walls glistened with moisture and Amy thought she saw Tom's eyes glisten too, but with a red, unnatural glimmer.

Amy began to cry bitterly, her fear getting the best of her. Dennis too felt the edges of his eyes burn and his throat seize up, but he willed the tears not to fall.

Tom rounded irritably at Amy. "Coward! Crying like a little baby…" He laughed, and it was high and cold, echoing through the dark void beyond them, the sound sent chills through both children and they backed away.

Tom was stepping deeper into the gloom. Just his shape was visible, and a slight glow on the whiteness of his teeth as he smiled and the whites his eyes. Amy was following him, but she wasn't sure why. She felt compelled to.

Tom skipped over the wet stones that lay strewn on the floor of the cave. He laughed and whooped, the sound caterwauling off the walls, sounding higher and more cruel as it echoed. He stopped in front of the back wall and ran his hands over the damp rock. Gradually, Amy felt tired. She felt her way to the jagged walls and sat against then on the floor. She saw Dennis's murky form standing off to one side, swaying slightly where he stood.

Amy looked to where Tom was standing, trying to perceive his form though the oppressive dimness. She felt like her mind was being filled with cotton, only it abrasive and painful, like the steel wool the kitchen maid used to scrub particularly stubborn messes. She felt lightheaded and drowsy. She tried to call Dennis's name, and then Tom's, but now words seemed to come out.

Then she felt the pain in her head intensify and spread all the why to the ends of her fingers and toes. She gasped at the hurt and struggled against it, but it was like fighting against a thick blanket of pain that had been thrown over her and was impossible to extricate herself from. Trying to scream was like having the blanket forced down her throat. Images flashed in front of her eyes: bloody messes and tangles of hair, knives and razor blades put to the skin of squirming animals, Billy's rabbit squealing in fright as a chord is wrapped around its frail neck…

Then, Amy thought she saw _herself _in the place of the rabbit, being twisted and squeezed, then thrown over the rafter and jerking down with a sharp pressure on her throat, the pain surging threw her body, her vision going fuzzy and dark as her brain ran out of oxygen…

Amy slumped as the fog in her mind slowly began to clear. She looked around and remembered that she wasn't hanging from a rafter in the dormitories, she was in that cold, dank cave and Tom was standing near the entrance, his body bathed in weak light. She looked around and saw Dennis, lying on the hard ground, groggily twisting about as he struggled to stand. Tom was grinning and Amy was almost positive she saw a red, bloody gleam flash in his gaze.

Mrs. Cole put Amy and Dennis to bed and then wondered what to do about Tom Riddle. He had sworn up and down that he didn't know Amy and Dennis weren't talking and looked so horribly pale and terribly. He stated that the three children went on an adventure and discovered a cave, that was all. Amy and Dennis just got scared for no reason, he didn't have anything to do with it, honest.

Mrs. Cole had looked after children most of her life and knew a thing or two about how they lie. Tom Riddle didn't lie like a child would; he didn't scuff his boots and look at the floor. He looked right at her and struggled to keep the grin off his unnaturally handsome face. She had forbidden him dinner that night and made him sit sullenly in the corner of the playroom while the other children ate. But what else could she do? Amy and Dennis said nothing about what had happened and there was no way to prove if Tom was involved or not, although she was _sure _that he was.

He was a disturbed child, she was certain. But what could she do?

**FIN**

R/R


End file.
